NYC NOW - July 20, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

After being forced out of a city-run shelter near the Navy Yard, a group of asylum seekers has formed a tent encampment in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill neighborhood, causing concern among some residents. In other news, New York State's Cannabis Control Board is set to allow growers and processors to sell their harvest directly to consumers at local farmers markets, as long as they obtain local approval first. Additionally, former Governor Andrew Cuomo continues to face scrutiny over his $5 million book deal he inked during the height of the COVID pandemic. Finally, WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk and the nonprofit, Street Lab, are highlighting stories from neighborhoods across New York City. The recently set up shop in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, July 20th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. After being ejected from a city-run shelter near the Navy Yard, some asylum seekers have formed a tent encampment. WNYC's Rune Ventigo-Paul says that's caused some concern among residents of Brooklyn's Clinton Hill. The dozen or so migrants occupy three tents beneath the BQE. One man says he was kicked out from a temporary shelter nearby

because he tried to sleep on the floor rather than his cot. Another says he was involved in a fight against security guards after they were abusive. Krista Capati, a Clinton Hill resident, says she's sympathetic to the plight of the migrants, but that their presence, along with the hundreds of men who remain in the nearby shelter on Hall Street, has generated lots of litter, exacerbated a rat problem, and caused single female residents to avoid the local park. A spokesperson for City Hall said some residents of the shelter had been ejected due to fighting, but that they could re-register for housing elsewhere. New York State's Cannabis Control Board will allow growers and processors to sell their harvest directly to consumers at makeshift farmers' markets.

Growers will have to get local approval first. Farmers have an oversupply of cannabis as they wait for New York's legal cannabis market to expand. Applications open today for those who want to set up a cannabis showcase pop-up, but it's not clear how quickly they'll be able to begin staging the events. State officials have just approved another 212 cannabis dispensary licenses, nearly doubling the total to 463. Low 80s right now and partly sunny in the city, mostly sunny today in 86, for a high. Tomorrow showers and thunderstorms, some could produce heavy rain and flash flooding,

a high Friday of 81. At the height of the COVID pandemic back in 2020, then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo received $5 million to pen a book on the crisis. Years later, the Democrat continues to face questions about his use as state resources on the project and whether that violated the law. Now the former governor is locked in the battle to keep that money. And as WNIC's John Campbell reports, the state ethics board could be dismantled along the way. It is now my distinct pleasure and honor to introduce Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo launched his campaign for governor back in 2010 on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan, named after boss tweed, the corrupt political boss. It was a not-so-s subtle metaphor. After years of scandal and corruption allegations,

plaguing New York leaders, Cuomo was vowing to clean up Albany. Now, two years removed from office, the former governor is waging an all-out legal war against the state ethics board, which is investigating whether he misused state resources on his book project. It's a means of distracting from the real issue, which is whether he indeed followed the ethics rules and the ethics laws of New York State. That's Rachel Fouse, Senior Policy Advisor for Ruehers. reinvent Albany, a government reform group. She's talking about a lawsuit Cuomo filed earlier this

year that challenges the Ethics Commission's very right to exist. The commission specifically looking into whether Cuomo violated the law by having top state aides help write the book. Cuomo's team claims they volunteered their time. Current Governor Kathy Hockel helped create this board after disbanding a previous ethics watchdog that Cuomo himself helped set up. The previous Commission was frequently criticized for being too closely aligned with Cuomo's interests. The new commission's members are nominated by the governor and legislative leaders, but final approval rests with the panel of law school deans, which is meant to bolster the commission's independence. But the former governor's lawyers say its structure violates the state constitution

and should be shut down. Bennett Leibman is executive director of Albany Law School's government law center. He worked for Cuomo a decade ago. He said, says the crux of the case comes down to this. Are you improperly delegating authority to a non-governmental entity to make a governmental decision? That'll be for the courts to decide. They are law school teams who are not public officers. State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Marcel heard arguments in the case last month in Albany. He's expected to rule in the coming weeks. The Ethics Board is scheduled a closed-door hearing. on Cuomo's book for late September.

John Campbell, WNYC News. WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk and the nonprofit street lab are working together to highlight stories from neighborhoods across New York City. We recently set up shop inside Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Here's some of what we heard. My name is Nathan Borgman, and I live in Greenwich Village. I moved here in 2010. I took the U-Haul on the wrong bridge, you know, that I wasn't supposed to take it on.

I don't remember, like, RFK or something. So it was like the tolls were too narrow, so, and I was the designated truck driver, you know. And then the mirrors were, like, scraping against the side of the toll. And it was too late for us to, like, back up and turn around. And it was this super corny thing because 2010 was the summer when that New York song came out with, I think, JZ, right? and so that was like blasting while we were going over the bridge. So that was the fun, you know, the iconic coming to New York kind of moment. My name is Lisa Holm and I live in the West Village.

Have lived there since February 1968 in the same apartment. I have three windows in my living room. Two east, one south and one of the east and the south are past the apartment building. In an 1880s tenement, walk up. I see rainbows over 70s. Avenue if there's an evening rainbow, which is kind of cool. And having grown up in Finland, getting an apartment with all those windows was the height of luxury, because where I grew up so much of the year, we have so little daylight. But I kind of came to the neighborhood and to the city,

thinking that I'd spend a year and maybe move back to Finland, and I fell in love with this crazy city. I'm still in love with this crazy city. My name is Dylan Markowitz. I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This is my favorite park. My girlfriend's actually over there selling her. art right now and going over to meet her after work. It just kind of feels like the nexus of the city in a way, this park specifically. It's just a matter of it just feeling like when you're here, you're in everyone's backyard all at once. My girlfriend's over there selling her art. You have the guy that plays the grand piano over there. You have people that just sit here all day long and play chess. It's a feeling unlike anywhere else I think in the city. Even when you go to the other parks

like Madison Square and Union Square, Washington Square Park is just like, it's this environment all on its own. It's its own thing. My name is Maski Mulcardo. Born and raised in Queens, New York, 21 years of age. I go to school in Manhattan. I go to Baruch. The reason why I'm here today is because I want to open up a little table. I want to sell stuff. Copper lamps, all handmade. I make them at home. It's just been really hard to get out of the house because I'm trying to build this confidence. I'm so intimidated. I don't know what to do. So I was just talking. I was just talking with a man named Takuma. He makes leather and a couple of the people who do things by hand.

Some are seamstresses, others are tailors. A lot of them sell weed. That's very popular here. That's probably the staple of Washington Square Park and chess. There's a lot of opportunity and I don't want to miss out. I think it's a prime time. I think all things are aligning right now, so I have a lot of hope. My name is Celia Carr and I grew up in Greenwich,

and I still live here. It's always nice to sit on a park bench. Once I fed the pigeons in the wintertime, and like 300 pigeons followed me right around the park on my walk, and that was pretty cool. I would say they're not rats with wings. They're like the nice bird. I think that rats, well, I have this theory that squirrels are friendly

because people are friendly to them. And rats would be just as friendly as friendly squirrels of people were nicer to them. The rats would come to you just like just like the squirrels but we need to be nicer of the rats so we can train them to be friendly to us. My name is Becca Zimmerman and I'm from Philadelphia Pennsylvania. My story is that my great grandmother lived in the Washington Square Village those big buildings right over there and I would come here to this park many weekends with her. She lived in until she was 104, and the only thing that she would like to eat was a hot dog with extra sourcrow.

So I like to come here and get a hot dog with extra sourcrowt and think of Rose Aginsky Zimmerman. Voices from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The next stop for WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk and Street Lab is Washington Heights. Look for us on West 164. street between Amsterdam and Edgecombe avenues. Weather permitting Wednesday, August 2nd, from noon until 2. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.